Ry Cooder, fresh off his recent performance at the San Jose Mariachi Festival with East L.A. songstress Ersi Arvizu, makes two more rare live appearance this Thursday and Friday when he reconnects with former bandmates from Little Village, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner, for two concerts at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to benefit the Richard deLone Special Housing Fund.

Shay Quillen of the San Jose Mercury News talks with Ry about this atypically packed performance schedule. "We're going to drive up, going to do Ersi's show, do a little recording, and then go down to the Great American," Cooder tells the Mercury News. "That's a fun week for me."

Quillen sees it as part of "an explosion of productivity" from Cooder that includes the recent release of I, Flathead, the final album in the California trilogy that also comprises Chavez Ravine and My Name Is Buddy, and producing the new Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall LP and CD.

For more information and to purchase tickets to this week's benefit concerts, visit gamh.com.